GPS on a Path to the Heart - The New York Times

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Published: February 10, 2011 IS there a proven strategy for finding love? If so, I suspect millions of people would like to now. In six years of editing this column, I have received so many stories from the baffled and the frustrated that even tsunami metaphors can’t convey the volume. Answers, I’m sure, abound. I can already see the raised hands of self-help authors, relationship coaches and matchmakers eager to ply their trade. Open your wallet and maybe you’ll learn that the secret is to follow a set of ‘antiquated rules or to lower your expectations and settle. Perhaps you’ll be asked to describe your favorite salty snack, and that preference, when added to your profile and cross-referenced with someone else’s preferences, will turn the key and in you’ll go. Surely there’s a science to this. Isn’t there a science to everything? Not according to all the grinning newlyweds who first locked eyes during Pilates or in a conga line at the tiki bar and found themselves hitched and happy without consultants, fees or even a single round of speed dating. “We just knew,” they say, maddeningly. “It’ll happen to you, too. You have to be patient.” Patience may be a virtue, but for many, it’s no strategy for finding love. So what else can you do, short of hiring advisers, creating a direct mail campaign or revealing your vitals to a site like Perfectmatch.com? For Valentine’s Day, I offer a sampling of intriguing tactics I’ve come across lately: familiar oldies that have been dusted off and modernized, along with some economical, technology-driven options. Perfect the text Seduction via love letters has a long, rich history. With text messaging, the genre is enjoying a renaissance, albeit one marked by shallowness and brevity. Not that that’s a bad thing. After all, it’s hard not to be impressed by the efficiency of a message like “ur gr8 lets m8,” which takes three seconds to type and a fraction of a second to send, and requires no stamp, wax seal or calligraphy. Cost: zero (depending on your texting plan). Yet it can still be the start of a beautiful relationship. If the object of your desire replies with something chatty like “lol! its f8!” you’re well on your way. Keep it going. Consider adding a playful photo or two (data charges may apply). But be careful where you aim your camera: One ill-advised picture can ruin a thousand words. CONSULT A RELIGIOUS GURU Just two months ago in this column Amy Klein explained how, as a lapsed Jew, she still had enough faith in divine intervention to follow a friend’s advice and consult a Jerusalem rabbi known for predicting coupledom. After he told Amy she’d meet her husband during Hanukkah (then three months away), she waited through the holiday on high alert before succumbing to despair. Until the next Hanukkah (he didn’t say which one!) , when she indeed found love. But did it happen because the rabbi predicted it, she wondered, or because his prediction caused her to make it so? Answer: Don’t analyze miracles. This is one miracle, by the way, that a lot of readers would like to tap into. Of the many who e-mailed us in response, an impressive number were already in Israel or on their way and wrote not to comment but to urgently request the rabbi’s name and contact information. TANTALIZE WITH TWEETS Not long ago a young Brooklynite I heard from, Julieanne Smolinski, discovered an interesting phenomenon. She was seducing people. And she was being seduced.